Westpac Group to create 300 new Adelaide jobs

The major bank has said that it is creating more than 300 roles in Adelaide across Westpac Group, Westpac Bank, BankSA, and Westpac Consumer and Business Bank.

The positions include (but are not limited to) credit assessor, lending manager, lending assistant, customer service adviser, home finance manager and team leader (customer assist) roles.

The roles would reportedly consolidate Westpac as one of the largest employers in the state with a workforce of more than 5,000 employees locally, according to the major bank.

It added that these roles build further on the group’s announcement in March that it had created 1,538 new jobs in South Australia over the previous 16 months.

Commenting on the creation of the new roles, Westpac and BankSA state general manager, consumer, Ben Owen said the roles include customer support, team leaders, analytics and operations management, consumer and business bankers (the major bank recently combined its consumer and business divisions into one division), and more.

He added that many of the roles would support Westpac Group’s national operations across all brands, including BankSA.

He said: “These roles provide South Australians with unique employment opportunities to join a large-scale business with a strong presence in the local market and build a career in the banking sector.

“We know that many South Australians have valuable transferrable skills that would be a good fit for these roles, so if they’re passionate about helping people, we encourage them to apply.”

“Our teams in South Australia work across some of our most critical operations, including lending, customer care and hardship assistance functions – and were at the heart of the bank’s customer response during the height of the pandemic, processing approximately 229,000 support packages for households and small businesses nationally.

“Westpac Group has had a presence in South Australia for 144 years. Through our continued investment, we’re proud to be growing our workforce here – supporting South Australians with job opportunities and contributing positively to the local economy.”

Earlier this year, Westpac Group announced that it is closing 48 bank branches and relocating 300 jobs to Victoria.

Approximately half the branch closures were believed to have been in Bank of Melbourne branches in Victoria, while there were also closures across the Westpac, St.George, BankSA, and Bank of Melbourne brands.

Westpac Group also announced in March that it will sell its lender’s mortgage insurance (LMI) business to global specialist insurer Arch Capital Group and enter into a 10-year exclusive supply agreement for Arch to provide LMI to the group.

The transaction sale price will be at book value, which will be determined at completion, which is expected to occur “by the end of August 2021”, subject to regulatory approvals.

Westpac said in July last year that it would onshore 1,000 jobs following “challenging conditions for home lending processing and call centres”.

The 1,000 new roles aimed to support Westpac’s call centres and provide processing and operational assistance to functions like home lending and consumer finance.

It came as Westpac acknowledged that its response rates had been “too slow” following the increased demand for customer assistance at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, which the bank said created challenging conditions for home lending processing and call centres, which “needed to be addressed”.

[Related: Westpac Group to close dozens of branches]